Certain types of electronic equipment such as calculators, telephones, etc. require a means of inputting data. A common form of these structures is comprised of a housing which retains a keypad, and a keypad which itself is formed of several piece parts. Typically the parts of the keypad are separately manufactured and the housing is injection molded, after which the parts of the keypad are assembled into the housing. In some cases the keypad parts are assembled together, after which the complete keypad is attached to the housing.
The above-described structure and assembly has been found to be labor intensive and therefore costly to manufacture. For example, each of the piece parts of the keypad must be manufactured using separate molds, often using different kinds of plastic or rubber to provide different characteristics of the various parts, and then the parts are combined into the keypad or into the housing, which is labor intensive.